Students at St. Ambrose University are learning and teaching through play.
Over the past year, students in the early childhood education and doctoral occupational therapy programs have participated in the interdisciplinary "Nature Play Project" at the SAU Children's Campus and Hand in Hand, a Quad-Cities organization providing inclusive programs for people of all abilities, from infants to adults.
The project is a framework for outdoor play, focused on early childhood intervention. The hope is to support children's physical, cognitive and social-emotional development though the benefits of being outdoors.
The Nature Play Project is designed to be embedded in classroom settings or other community-based programs, like Hand in Hand.
"We are developing professional development courses for teachers and early interventionists, so they can use the outdoors to more sustainably benefit their students, and themselves," said Angela Rekers, a professor in SAU's early childhood education program.
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Funded by an SAU grant in spring 2023, the Nature Play Project is headed by Rekers and Angie McCombs, senior lecturer in the occupational therapy program. Last spring, they got to present on the project's pilot at the Forest School Research Symposium at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom and the Children and Nature Network Conference in Madison, Wisconsin.
"It was really well received," Rekers said. "There hasn't been a lot of research (on) this idea of early intervention, cross-disciplinary work, so we were excited."
Hand in Hand received a grant in spring 2022 to renovate its playground and outdoor classroom space. The occupational therapy students visit Hand in Hand on Fridays to observe how children use these spaces and explore strategies to better support early intervention work.
"We love partnering with the students; they are so eager to share in reciprocal learning, which is really fun," said Angie Kendall, CEO of Hand in Hand. "We learn just as much from them as they do from us."
She's enjoyed collaborating with SAU students and faculty on new ideas for adaptive technology and equipment, inclusive playtime, interventions and other areas.
"Traditional play equipment can be very overwhelming and intimidating to a lot of children, especially if they have motor challenges," Kendall said, adding Hand in Hand has seen "extraordinary growth" in children's confidence and creativity when playing. "Even from children who (see) an external physical therapist."
SAU plans to continue the Nature Play Project at Hand and the Children's Campus in the spring — but they're also eyeing other partnerships, including Nahant Marsh Education Center and Tapestry Farms.
Rekers said her team has already met with Tapestry Farms about building a new outdoor learning space at its Trinity Cathedral site, calling it “another goal” for the spring.
The purpose of play
Since both structured and unstructured "free" play is a crucial factor in childhood development, the Nature Play Project's embedded approach can help schools avoid the burdens of additional intervention specialists or lost instruction time.
Children naturally learn self-regulation skills by playing, Rekers said.
"But it becomes internal," she added. "Which is why I think play — whether it's indoors or outdoors — is so important for children, because they become more internally motivated."
Many people have a narrower perception of early childhood education, Rekers said, noting how it ranges from infancy to third grade.
"Early childhood is very holistic," she said. "We are thinking about their physical development, their social-emotional development (and) cognitive outcomes."
Still, Rekers said children are being increasingly pressured by academic expectations that don't always align with their physical, sensory and cognitive development. This leads many of them to be "already disengaged" when their school-based education starts.
"And it shouldn't be like that," she said. "What they need is that realistic sensory learning experience. … Climbing, running, picking things up — that challenges them, and that's what's so exciting."
Wider applications
Outdoor play can also help students understand how classroom concepts — like science, physics, math or even leadership skills — apply in real life. When students learn through play, they often feel more competent and confident to tackle formal instruction, Rekers said.
"Math is so fun when it's developmentally appropriate," she said, adding the "Forest School" concept hails from Scandinavian countries, where kids don't typically start traditional school until age seven. "So, the idea is (that) writing, formal reading and all of those kinds of things come much more naturally once you're seven and have had all these experiences that make you feel like a competent, learner."
Rekers' own doctoral research studied children's motivation towards learning and performing task and participation across classroom and woodland Forest School settings.
She found that children receiving supplemental outdoor play demonstrated diverse skills that were often overlooked in the classroom setting, and these experiences also encouraged a wider range of physical, sensory and self-regulatory opportunities.
"Those challenging behaviors were just not there outside," Rekers said. "The kids who are the most 'trouble' in school, become the leaders outside, so I wanted to (find out) why that might be the case."
Her research compared a range of elementary-aged students’ playtime habits and behaviors in both settings, which also uncovered another finding: students seemed to be more fixed to certain roles or activities in the classroom — largely based on gender — compared to outdoors.
For example, Rekers said most girls would play as "princesses" in the classroom, while boys might engage in more hands-on activities. But this didn't translate to outside.
"We'd have boys hanging in a hammock or (playing with) woodland puppets, and the girls would be climbing trees, building dens, things like that," she said. "We'd see boys and girls playing together more frequently … there was this real shift in gender affordances."
Rekers said play-based learning should still be facilitated by teachers or trained adults, nodding to the Nature Play Project's focus on professional development.
"That's what we're trying to do here, train our students and graduates in play-based learning provisions and therapy, so they can really observe where they're at (developmentally)," she said.
In meeting kids where they're at, adults can gain a better understanding of their perspectives, motivations and challenges.
"It allows us to help guide them and (meet) some of the expectations they find so challenging," Rekers said. "It just provides a more cooperative, better way to support young people.
"I think seeing children as competent — instead of having a deficit perspective — is really important, too," she added.
